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Report Shows Increase in Iraq Violence Since January •
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Iraq Violence Sees Spike
By Ryan Lenz
The Associated Press
Wednesday 12 March 2008
Baghdad - Violence appeared to be on the rise in Iraq after a day that saw
at least 42 people die - numbers that cast doubt on the easing of sectarian
violence following a surge of U.S. forces to the country last year.
An Iraqi official confirmed the grisliest attack of Tuesday when 16 passengers
on a bus in southern Iraq were killed by a roadside bomb. The U.S. military,
however, claimed no one died in the attack, which was targeting a passing military
convoy. The reason for the discrepancy was not immediately clear.
Dr. Hadi Badr al-Riyahi, head of the Nasiriyah provincial health directorate,
confirmed Wednesday that the attack on the bus traveling from Najaf to Basra
killed 16 civilians and wounded 20.
At the time, a local policeman and the assistant bus driver also said 16 people
were killed.
But Maj. Brad Leighton, a military spokesman in Baghdad, disputed that claim
on Wednesday, telling The Associated Press that only one coalition soldier and
one Iraqi civilian were wounded in the attack about 50 miles from Nasiriyah,
about 200 miles southeast of Baghdad.
At least 26 people were killed Tuesday in other violence around the country.
The spike comes in the wake of a 60 percent drop in attacks across the country
since June, according to U.S. military figures.
According to an Associated Press count, at the height of unrest from November
2006 to August 2007, on average approximately 65 Iraqis died each day as a result
of violence. As conditions improved, the daily death toll steadily declined.
It reached its lowest point in more than two years in January, when on average
20 Iraqis died each day.
Those numbers have since jumped. In February, approximately 26 Iraqis died
each day as a result of violence, and so far in March, that number is up to
39 daily. These figures reflect the months in which people were found, and not
necessarily - as in the case of mass graves - the months in which they were
killed.
Last Thursday, two massive bombs killed 68 people in Baghdad's Karradah neighborhood,
while on March 3, two car bombs killed 24 people in the capital.
Military spokesman Rear Adm. Gregory Smith said Sunday that recent violence
should not be taken as evidence of "an increase or a trend of an increase."
"I think we need to continue to look at historically what has happened over
the last year to really put in perspective a one-week or two-weeks' worth of
activity inside Baghdad," Smith said.
An American soldier died Tuesday after his patrol was hit by a roadside bomb
near Diwaniyah, 80 miles south of Baghdad, a day after eight soldiers died in
a pair of bomb attacks marking the heaviest single day of U.S. casualties since
September.
On Wednesday, two Iraqi civilians were killed and 10 others wounded when a
roadside bomb exploded near a passing U.S. military patrol, local police said.
There were no reports of American casualties.
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Report Shows Increase in Iraq Violence Since January
By David Morgan
Reuters
Wednesday 12 March 2008
Washington - Iraq has seen some increased violence since January, including
suicide and car bombings, despite a sharp overall decline in attacks in the
past eight months, the Pentagon said on Tuesday.
The rise in violence was partly as a result of recent U.S.-led offensives against
Islamist militants, including al Qaeda in Iraq, the Defense Department said
in its latest quarterly report on the war.
The release of the report, which covers December through February, coincided
with a surge of violence that killed 46 people across Iraq on Tuesday.
The Pentagon noted a rise in security incidents since January in Nineveh and
Diyala provinces and other areas where it said al Qaeda in Iraq militants have
flocked since being driven from former strongholds by U.S.-allied Sunni tribesmen.
The report called the increased violence a "short term" result of
military operations against insurgents that began in January.
Defense officials could not say how closely the violence sparked by the offensives
was related to a rise in large bombings that are aimed at causing many deaths,
described as "high-profile attacks."
"In January 2008, high-profile attacks rose for the first time in five
months as a result of a slight increase in person-borne IEDs (improvised explosive
devices) and a slight increase in vehicle-borne IED's," the report said.
Charts of attack data in the report showed the increase in such bombings extending
into February with a small rise in civilian deaths for the same period.
No figures accompanied the charts, and many of the comparisons in the report
were given in percentages rather than figures.
Surge Strategy
However, in assessing the overall trend of the war, the report echoed the Bush
administration's stance that a U.S. troop increase that started last year has
paid dividends by broadly dampening much of the violence in Iraq. Critics of
the war opposed the troop increase.
Since June, when the last combat brigade in President George W. Bush's so-called
surge strategy arrived in Iraq, deaths from sectarian violence have fallen 90
percent, the report said.
Total civilian deaths were down more than 70 percent over the same period,
the report said, giving only percentages and not actual figures.
"Key indicators are at levels last seen consistently in mid-2005, with
indirect fire attacks at levels not seen since early 2004," the report
said.
The recent violence underscores the fragility of the relative calm that has
taken hold in Iraq, as the Bush administration moves to withdraw its extra combat
forces by mid-summer.
There are now 162,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, but the number is expected to fall
to about 140,000 by the end of July.
Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, is widely expected to
recommend a pause in the troop drawdowns when he testifies to Congress next
month.
U.S. officials say attacks have dropped more than 60 percent because of the
U.S. force surge, the emergence of Sunnis allied with the United States against
al Qaeda, improvements in the Iraqi army and a cease-fire declaration by radical
Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.
But on Tuesday, members of Sadr's militia fought U.S. special forces and Iraqi
security forces backed by U.S. warplanes in clashes in which 14 people died.
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Editing by Andrew Gray and Frances Kerry.
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